Introduction
For almost three decades now, the Continental philosopher and socio-political theoretician Rosi Braidotti has been one of the most lucid and stimulating voices in postmodern feminism. In the wake of figures such as Gilles Deleuze or Luce Irigaray, the 1990s witnessed the flowering of her philosophical agenda, an adventurous roadmap propelled by various interconnected monographs ranging from accurate accounts of ethics and emancipation to pioneering elaborations on subjectivity. Over the years and through her notion of posthumanism, Braidotti has increasingly framed these concerns in light of a generalized ecology, also known as ecosophy: a relational model merging technological, geological and biological dimensions while “crossing transversally the multiple layers of the subject, from interiority to exteriority and everything in between”, thus configuring a model of subjectivity in which the subject is fully exposed. By including the convergence of the Fourth Industrial Revolution and the Sixth Extinction in these analyses, Braidotti scrutinizes the notion of the Anthropocene in light of what constitutes the basic research question of this essay: What forms of subjectivity are fueled by a post-anthropocentric approach? How do we conceive the elements of creativity, imagination, subversion, desire and aspirations of the self, and its relation to others and to the world, in light of our entanglement with human and non-human beings? In brief: How do we engage with human subjectivity in the age of the Anthropocene?
Drawing on an argument developed through a close reading of Braidotti’s posthuman subjectivity, the central contribution of this essay consists in approaching these questions by proposing a model of subjectivity defined as xenological. In pursuit of this purpose, the text initially argues that, within Braidotti’s model, the transversal multiplicity of the self and its non-hierarchical relationality with the other and the world are worth preserving, since they powerfully account for crucial socio-political aspects of the Anthropocene. However, by grounding them in a neo-Spinozistic monism, Braidotti obscures the accountability of finitude, agency, and change, watering down the notion of otherness and compromising the overall theory’s consistency. Since, according to this argument, these obstacles derive from the neo-Spinozistic monism propelling Braidotti’s posthuman subjectivity, this essay proposes to combine the latter with an ontological framework that emphasizes discrete entities. Relying on its non-onto-taxonomical pluralism, object-oriented ontology (OOO) is instrumentalized for this purpose. By capitalizing on this confederation and deviating from a generalized ecology, the essay proposes a xenological form of subjectivity invoking the greek concept of xeno – including both xenos (guest-friend) and xenia (pacts of hospitality) – as a narrative imaginary in order to accomodate a form of subjectivity whose exposure is no longer absolute, but selective and intermittent. A subjectivity that is thus inexhaustible by any overarching ecology, accounting for the notions of self, other and world in consonance with the concepts that are maintained from Braidotti’s model, while approaching its aforementioned limitations through OOO’s non-onto-taxonomical pluralism.
Following this introduction, Section 2 analyzes the relevance of Braidotti’s posthuman subjectivity in relation to the Anthropocene, discussing her model’s difficulties in accounting for finitude, agency and change. In light of these criticisms, Section 3 briefly presents the non-onto-taxonomical pluralism of OOO while arguing for its compatibility with decisive aspects of Braidotti’s posthuman subjectivity. Given this foundation, Section 4 presents the notion of xeno and proposes a xenological form of subjectivity, arguing that it constitutes an adequate alternative to Braidotti’s project. By way of conclusion, section 5 briefly signals the relevance that this form of subjectivity might have regarding the architectural notion of home within the Anthropocene.